Tag: visiting scholars

Renowned Italian pianist, recording artist and conductor Michele Campanella will be a guest of the Division of Music in SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts for a mini-residency March 31-April 4, 2014.

Campanella will give a master class for SMU pianists selected by the faculty noon-2 p.m. Wednesday, April 2 in Caruth Auditorium, Owen Arts Center. The master class is free and open to the public.

On Thursday, April 3 he will present a free public recital at 8 p.m. in Caruth Auditorium. The all-Liszt program will feature ultra-virtuoso transcriptions and paraphrases from the operas of Verdi and Wagner, including the “Danza sacra” from Aida, a Rigoletto paraphrase, “Liebestod” from Tristan and Isolde and the “Overture” from Tannhäuser.

Internationally acclaimed as a major virtuoso interpreter of Liszt, Campanella is a three-time winner of the Grand Prix du Disque awarded by the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest (1976, 1977 and 1998), the latter for his recording Franz Liszt-The Great Transcriptions, I-II on the Philips label. He was awarded the “Liszt High Merit” medal by the Hungarian government in 1986 and the American Liszt Society Medal in 2002.

Trained at the Vincenzo Vitale School in Naples, Campanella has interpreted composers as diverse as Clementi, Weber, Poulenc, Busoni, Rossini, Brahms and Ravel. He has recently recorded an anthology of Liszt paraphrases, 12 Transcendental Studies, and a selection of works from Liszt’s late period played on Liszt’s own original Bechstein piano. The latter is the first chapter of a 12-CD series dedicated to Liszt that will be released under the Brilliant label.

Segovia is the Oberlin Graduate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity in Vanderbilt University Divinity School, where he has taught since 1984. He is also a member of the theology faculty of Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

He teaches and researches in the fields of early Christian origins, theological studies, and cultural studies, including non-Western Christian theologies, postcolonial, minority and diaspora studies. Segovia has served on the editorial boards of several academic journals, has worked as consultant for foundations and publishing houses, and has lectured both nationally and internationally. He is also a past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians in the United States.

He is editor, with Roland Boer, of The Future of the Biblical Past and of A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings, with R. S. Sugirtharajah.

Segovia will preach, lecture and participate in a number of public and academic events during his tenure. Two events are open to the public:

• Dr. Segovia will preach during the annual Archbishop Romero Memorial Service in Perkins Chapel at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 2. His homily is titled “Romero and the Call to Bear Fruit in the World.”

• On Thursday, April 3, Segovia will give a public lecture, “Vatican II in Retrospect: A Lifetime and Welcome Companion,” in the Prothro Great Hall, Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Hall. Carlos Cardoza-Orlandi, professor of global Christianities and mission studies in the Perkins School, will present a Response. The event begins with refreshments at 5:30 p.m., followed by the Lecture and Response at 6 p.m.

“I am delighted to welcome Dr. Segovia to Perkins School of Theology and to SMU,” said the Rev. Dr. Hugo Magallanes, director of the Center. “He is world class scholar, the current president of the Society of Biblical Literature, and to have him with us for two weeks is a great honor. His teaching and writings are quite influential in general, and in particular in the area of Biblical interpretation from a post-colonial perspective,” he said.